Philipp Meyer - The Son

I nodded. “Is there coffee?”

“In the pot. Frío .”

I poured a cup anyway.

Consuela busied herself chopping nopales, tossing them into the pan with butter.

“Does your father know?”

“He will soon enough.”

“Am I to treat her as a guest or…?”

“Of course,” I said.

I wondered how well she had known the Garcias. But of course the Garcias were wealthy and Consuela is a servant. The sun had been up two hours and was filling the house, the warm air coming through the windows. I was four hours late for work. I went to the icebox and pulled out a few chunks of cabrito, then wrapped them in a cloth with a tortilla.

“Let me heat that,” she said.

“I better go,” I said. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

“Should I watch her?”

“No,” I said. “Just give her whatever she wants.”

I DIDN’T GET home until well after dark, when I knew Consuela would have gone back to her house. I could smell that someone had been cooking, but the plates had all been cleaned and put away. María was at the table, reading a book. The Virginian, by Wister.

“Do you like this one?” she said.

“It’s not bad.”

“The strong white man comes to an unpopulated wilderness and proves himself. Except there has never been any such thing.”

We sat there with nothing to say. Finally I decided to bring it up.

“Everything happened pretty fast that morning.”

She went back to the book.

“I think it’s best we talk about it.”

“Of course you do,” she said. “You want to be forgiven.”

The night air was blowing through the house. There was a screech owl outside and the windmill, and, in the distance, the sound of my father’s drilling rig. I sat and listened.

“I’ll leave in the morning. I’m sorry I came.”

I felt myself relax. “All right,” I said.

LAY AWAKE SEVERAL hours. Am courting disaster, some cataclysm I cannot imagine; I feel it as the old man knows rain is coming. I want only for her to disappear… the thought itself relaxes me. All my noble thoughts vanish — when kindness is truly needed it is scarce as the milk of queens. It seems that any moment a company of sediciosos might kick down the door, carry me off to the nearest adobe wall…

But that was not what I was really afraid of. I had a memory of Pedro and I sitting on his portico. Aná came out and brought us sweet tea, but when Pedro drank, the tea ran down his shirt and onto his lap; there was a hole under his chin I had not noticed. Then I was standing with my father and Phineas, on one side a deep green pasture, the smell of huisache, the shrubs all around us dotted with gold. In front of us an old elm tree… a man on a horse, a rope slack around his neck, people expecting something of me; I could not do it, though it was a simple enough action. Finally Phineas slapped the horse across the hams and the man slid off the back, twisting and kicking, his legs searching for purchase, but there was only air…

Humiliation of failure, jealousy of Phineas. And yet I knew I could not have done it, no matter how many chances they might have given me. They were trying to harden me; all wasted effort.

I opened my eyes. I was cold. The wind was blowing through the house, two or three A.M., the windmills creaking, coyotes yipping. I thought of a fawn running in panicked circles, then went to the window and stood looking, there was enough moonlight to see far out over our pastures, ten miles at least. Nothing in sight that did not belong to us.

Finally I got dressed. I made my way to the hallway in the west wing of the house, stepping quietly, as if meeting for an assignation, though it did not matter… we were alone. I noticed that my breath was foul, my hair and face greasy, the smell of old sweat, but I continued down the hall. A prowler in my own house. Past the busts on their pedestals, the drawings of ruins… another portrait of my mother, past Glenn’s room and Pete Junior’s room and Charlie’s room… finally I heard a fan blowing behind one of the doors. I knocked softly.

I knocked again and waited and then knocked a third time. Then I opened the door. The bed was empty but the sheets were mussed and it was dark. I went to the window and she was standing on the roof of the gallery, at the very edge.

“Come back from there.”

She didn’t move. She was wearing a nightdress Consuela must have given her. For a moment I thought she was sleepwalking.

“Come here,” I repeated.

“If you’re going to kill me…” she said. “I don’t care but I am not just going to walk out into the brasada with you.”

“You should stay here,” I told her.

“Imposible.”

“Stay until you’re well.”

She shook her head.

“I wanted to stop you before you left. That’s all I wanted.”

“In order that you will have done something kind.” She looked at me, shook her head, then looked out over the land. She was looking toward her old house, I realized. I worried she might step over the edge. She said, “Today in the kitchen while your back was turned, I thought about how I might put the chopping knife into your throat. I thought about how many steps it was and what I would do if you turned around.”

“Stay,” I said.

She shook her head. “You don’t know what you’re asking, Peter.”

JUNE 24, 1917

In non-Garcia-related news, the vaqueros complain that the noise of the drilling is ruining the cattle. They do not see this year’s calf crop being a good one if the animals are subjected to all that noise.

I went to my father to ask how deep they intend to drill. He told me to the center of the earth. I ask if he knows that our aquifer is shallow, and our water some of the best in this part of Texas, and that if he leaks petroleum into it, we are done for. He tells me these men are experts. He means the ones who sleep in hog wallows.

IT OCCURS TO me that we are entering an era in which the human ear will cease to distinguish sounds. Today I barely heard the drillers. What other things am I not hearing?

WHEN I RETURNED to the house for dinner, there was the sound of the piano before I even reached the door. I removed my boots and left them outside so she would not hear me enter, opened and closed the door very softly, then lay on the divan listening to her play. When I opened my eyes she was standing over me. For an instant I imagined her as she had been ten years earlier: her round face, dark eyes. Then I looked at her hands. They were empty.

“I am going to eat.”

“Alone?”

“I don’t care,” she said.

She heated up what Consuela had left for us. When we finished I asked her again what had happened that day.

She acted like she hadn’t heard. “Would you mind if I cooked a little more? I can’t stop thinking about food.”

“There are always things in the icebox,” I said.

She took some cold chicken and began to eat. She tried to be dainty but I could tell it took a lot of effort, I was full but she was starving.

“Tell me.”

“You think that talking about this will allow me to forgive you.”

“I haven’t forgiven myself,” I said quietly.

“Telling you changes nothing,” she said. “Just so we are clear.”

I nodded.

“Fine. So, when they came into the house, they shot everyone, whether they were already on the floor or standing up. Someone shot my niece, who was six, and then, like a coward, I went into my room and hid in my closet. After that I remember sitting on my bed and someone removing my shirt and realizing they are going to rape me before they kill me, then I saw it was you. I thought you were going to rape me and somehow it was much worse.